Share your family recipes to win a copy of Rachel Allen's Recipes From My Mother PLUS a £100 Lakeland voucher

[SorchaMumsnet]

Full of warmth and nostalgia, Rachel Allen's Recipes from My Mother is a book of culinary inspiration passed down through the generations. To celebrate, we're asking you to share your own family recipes.

Rachel’s food is heart-warming. She uses gorgeous ingredients in abundance to create comforting, vibrant meals. Her love of food started when she was very young, sitting in the kitchen with her mother, helping and tasting. Her mother taught her their Scandi family recipes, as well as those she picked up from living in Ireland. Rachel became more and more passionate about food as she grew up, and she drew inspiration from her childhood memories of helping her mother cook and sitting around with her family enjoying delicious meals and treats.

In Recipes from My Mother, Rachel celebrates the food memories of her childhood, alongside those of friends and other members of her family. Packed with much-loved recipes and stunning photography, this is the book to make you fall back in love with cooking.

One of our favourite recipes from the book is the mouth-watering Mother's Plum Shortcake. See how to make it for yourself.

For a chance to win a copy of the cookbook and a £100 Lakeland voucher, just share the recipes that have been passed down to you from your mother or family.

This discussion is sponsored by HarperCollins and will end on midday, 29 March

Books T&Cs apply

[clairethewitch70]

Butternut Squash Soup

1 butternut
1 large onion
2 garlic cloves
2 pints stock
salt & pepper
2 tablespoons oil

Chop onion & garlic and fry in the oil for 5 minutes. Chop butternut and add to the onions and fry for another 5 minutes. Add stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Salt & pepper to taste. Blend until pureed. Serves 4 people. Delicious

[asuwere]

the main things which I remember making with my Mum which I still regularly make are macaroni (spoon flour, spoon marg, cover with milk; cook on hob till thickening then add cheese, pour over cooked pasta) and pancakes (technically dropped scones: 8oz self raising flour, 1oz sugar, 1 egg, milk to mix. Spoon onto hot frying pan, turn when bubbles pop up.) Both very simple but always enjoyed. :)

[ButterflyOfFreedom]

My mum isn't great at cooking / baking but the one thing that I remember she was quite good at (and I used to love as a child!) was her (very ordinary, basic) sponge cake!

Simple recipe:
225g self-raising flour
225g butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
Mix all of the ingredients using an electric whisk in a large bowl
Pour the mixture into a tin
Place in the oven till golden brown (approx.20 mins)
Cool on a wire rack before serving - voila!

[SerialReJoiner]

The most comforting recipe from my childhood is my mother's lasagna. She would make it the ordinary way, with layers of tomato sauce combined with mince, lasagna sheets and white sauce, bit she always added cottage cheese to the white sauce which put it over the top for me! The texture was always perfect, and I still haven't mastered it.

[foxessocks]

Recipe from my childhood is simple fruit buns and it's the only recipe as such that I actually know off by heart and use proper measurements for!!
4oz self raising flour
4oz butter or margarine
4oz caster sugar
2 eggs
Sultanas

Makes 12 buns

Simple but effective!

[HamletsSister]

Very easy way to make a sponge cake.

Weigh the egg (shell on).

Equal quantities to the weight of the egg of butter, sugar and flour.

If you want a bigger cake - weigh 2 eggs, or 3.

It is foolproof, quantity-wise.

Then cream together butter and sugar, add egg (shell off now!) and sift in flour and stir gently.

[aristocat]

My mom was German so we always had cake in the house 😀

Her absolute favourite was a Marble Bundt cake ( I still treasure her bundt tin)

 
• 300g butter, softened
• 300g sugar
• 6 eggs
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 3 tsp almond
• 450g flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 150ml milk
• 3 Tbsp cocoa
• 3 Tbsp milk


1 Cream softened butter and sugar together. Beat in eggs, vanilla and almond extract.
2 In a separate bowl, sieve flour, salt and baking powder. Add this mixture to the butter mixture alternating with the milk.
3 In a separate bowl, mix together 3 Tbsp cocoa and 3 Tbsp milk. Add 3-4 heaping Tbsp of white dough to this cocoa mixture.
4 Put ½ of white dough in a greased & floured bundt pan. Smooth chocolate dough evenly on top. Add the remaining ½ of white dough on top.
5 Use a fork to swirl chocolate mixture through the white dough.
6 Bake at 170C for 1 1/2 hours.
7 Dust with icing sugar when cooled and
enjoy 🙂

Happy memories

[finova]

Mars bar cake:

3 ounces rice crispies
Mix with
3 ounces of butter and 3 Mars Bars (which have been melted in a pan)

Press into a square tin.

Melt a large bar/s of chocolate and pour over top.
Chill to set.

Works really well. Some recipes also add marshmallows but we never did.

[Nelllo]

Great Aunt Helen's Shortbread

[TheDuchessOfKidderminster]

My mum used to make Mars bar sauce, which was the most delicious thing ever! And very simple to make:

Chop up a couple of Mars bars and melt in a pan with 100 ml or so of double cream, stir until the Mars bars have all melted and serve.

We used to have this poured over a chocolate sponge but it would be delicious with all sorts of other stuff, ice cream, pancakes and so on.

[TellMeItsNotTrue]

Lentil soup

Red lentils
Large potato
Large onion
Large carrot
2 sticks of celery

Cut all of the veg up and add to a pan with a generous helping of red lentils (if you stir up, everything should pretty much be covered by lentils)
Add a knor stock cube and an oxo stock cube and hot water an inch over the stuff in the pan
Bring to the boil then turn down and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring as regularly as possible
Season with black pepper
Leave it as it is or blend to desired consistency

Has to be served in a large mug, it's known as hug in a mug soup

[user1488710594]

We love a savoury Cheese & Onion Bread & Butter Pudding, made by my gran, my mum & now me. Just like the sweet pudding but made with stale bread, sliced onions & peppers, grated cheese, mustard, butter, eggs & milk. A great way to use up leftovers, and tasty as a supper or main dish served with seasonal green veg

[Susangilley7]

Aunty Stella's fish Pie:
Use a mix of white (cod or similar) and smoked fish (haddock) and a few frozen prawns.
A couple of hard boiled eggs quartered
A tin of condensed mushroom soup.
Sprinkle of frozen sweetcorn.
Place Mashed potato on top of this mix and a little grated cheddar..
180 degrees fan oven for 45 mins to an hour. Cook till browned. Great served with peas or green beans.

[ClemmaT]

I grew up in Kent and my gran's family were bakers and my nan was a school cook. A traditional Kentish recipe that was handed down on both sides was Gypsy Pudding. I didn't realise until I'd left Kent that it was a Kentish recipe and not found elsewhere! It is very sugary so perfect for anyone with a sweet tooth like me! It is also known as gypsy tart and normally would have shortcrust pastry as a base, but to make it even naughtier, we use a biscuit base made from bourbon biscuits and melted butter blended until smooth and put in fridge to set (one small packet of around 14 biscuits). Put in fridge to set. In a bowl, whisk a can of evaporated milk and 200g of dark muscovado sugar for at least 15 minutes. It will rise, go dark tan in colour and go thick and creamy. When ready, pour onto biscuit base. Cook in oven at 190c for 20mins, or until the top goes slightly crusty. Serve with ice cream or creme fraiche.

[Cookingongas]

My mum is no cook but often made peppermint creams
1 egg white
300 ish g icing sugar
Peppermint essence
Food colouring

Whisk the egg white to frothy, add on everything else, mix until dough like and make into colourful balls.

This was my first lesson in eating with your eyes- green creams taste more pepperminty every time

[glenka]

Unfortunately cooking was never much of a thing in our family when I was younger but I'm hoping to change that and pass on a lot of recipes I have discovered through reading lots of cookery books and learning how to cook everyday meals.

[hdh747]

Lamb hotpot
1 lb diced lamb
5 medium carrots, peeled and diced, quite small
1 onion, peeled and diced
Handful chopped parsley
1 pint lamb or chicken stock

4 tsps cornflour and enough water to mix to a thin paste
3-4 large potatoes peeled and thinly sliced

Put lamb, carrots, onion, parsley and stock in a casserole dish and cook in an over at 180C/gas 4 for 2 hrs.
Remove from oven and stir in the cornflour mixture. Layer the sliced potatoes on top. Cook for a further hour until the potatoes are tender and lightly browned.

[lizd31]

A firm family favourite from when I was a child & still a favourite over 50 years on is Caulifower Cheese

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower, broken into large florets
40g butter
40g plain flour
400ml milk
1 tsp English mustard
100g mature cheddar cheese, grated
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.

Wash the cauliflower thoroughly and place in a large saucepan of salted water. Bring to the boil and cook for 3-5 minutes, until the cauliflower is almost tender, but still fairly firm. Put into a colander and leave to drain.

For the sauce, melt the butter in a medium, heavy-based pan and stir in the flour. Cook over a gentle heat for one minute. Remove the pan from the heat and gradually add the milk stirring well between each addition. Return the pan to a medium heat and bring the mixture to the boil, stirring constantly. Simmer for two minutes, then remove from the heat.

Stir in the mustard and two thirds of the cheese and set aside. Arrange the cauliflower in an ovenproof baking dish. Pour over the sauce, ensuring the cauliflower is completely covered. Sprinkle over the remaining cheese and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the top is golden-brown and bubbling.

[beckyinman]

Cauliflower soup

-500g cauliflower (frozen is fine!)

• 1 vegetable stock cube
  
• 1 onion roughly chopped
  
• 1 tablespoon horseradish
  

Put the cauliflower and onion in a large saucepan.
Make up the stock cube with 1 1/2 pints of hot water and put in a pan
Bring to boil then simmer for about 30 minutes
Once cauliflower is soft use stick blender to blitz and then put back on low heat to get down to the consistency you like
At the end put in the horseradish (not cream of horseradish)
This will make about 6 decent sized portions and can be frozen

[ThemisA]

Peasant's Pudding (not very PC!)

Pureed fruit for 4 (apples or apples and pears or apples and bananas)
6 0z oats
2 oz Sugar (Demerera works well)
3 0z butter

Melt butter and add sugar and oats and top over cold puree - chill well and serve with cream or plain Greek yogurt

[Annieg1234]

my mum wasnt particularly great at cooking but she could always make a quiche Lorraine to perfection and although shes now gone i still make it when my sisters and i get together.
its just a shortcrust pastry , and then really strong cheese, smoked bacon, sliced mushrooms ( gently fired beforehand to get rid of the musroom oils, other wise it will swamp the quiche when cooking) alittle bit of chopped onion, sliced tomato and then whisk 3 eggs with some milk and pour over. cook for about 40 mins. i cant provide measurements on the milk etc because i was always taught to just chuck it in!
Some may think Quiche is an old fashioned and outdated recipe but its gorgeous with a side salad and a dollop of coleslaw :)

[Elizasmum02]

baby spinach 250g bag
1 can chickpeas
1 chorizo sauasage, chopped
3 celery sticks
8 blanched tomatoes

fry the chorizo until fat comes out, as celery and fry with lid on for about 5 mins. add tomatoes then spinach untill its softened then add the chickepeas, add 1 to 2 pints of chicken stock then boil for 1 1/2 hours.

best soup ever

[voyager50]

This teabread is a recipe that I think was originally my great-grandmother's.

It is easy to make and tastes lovely - all the women in my family make it regularly and I always make one to take with me when I visit friends.

Make a strong cup of black tea (I use Lady Grey)

Put a cup of sultanas in a bowl and pour the tea over them.

Cover and leave to soak overnight or for around 6 hours

After soaking add 2 cups of self-raising flour, 3/4 cup castor sugar and 1 egg

Mix it all together and transfer to a greased loaf tin.

Bake for around 40 minutes on gas mark 4, 180c / 350f until a skewer from the middle comes out clean.

Serve buttered warm or cold.

[portfoliomum]

The food/recipe passed down to me by my mum is dhal. To be honest, I didn't love it as a child but I absolutely love dhal now, my girls all liked it as babies & toddlers but have rejected it since. My 12y old is coming back to it now. Anyway the recipe varies - but I tend to boil red lentils in water, when they've come to boil skim off the stuff that has come to the top & add turmeric, and boil until soft. I make a Tarka separately by frying a chopped onion with garlic & various spices including cumin, coriander & Garam masala & if it's for me, add ginger & chopped fresh green chilli. I add this to the dhal & add a squeeze of lime or lemon juice. Fresh coriander completes it & served with rice, this takes me back to childhood!

[LindsayLancs]

My mum hardly ever bakes but she makes a gorgeous Italian Lemon Loaf Cake:

For the cake:
4 oz soft butter
4 oz caster sugar
6 oz self raising flour
4 tbsp milk
Grated zest one lemon
2 large eggs
Pinch salt

For the syrup:
Lemon juice from one and half lemons
3 oz icing sugar

Greaseproof paper a 2 lb loaf tin

Place all cake ingredients in a bowl and beat until blended.

Pour in loaf tin and bake at 180 c for 45 mins then cool.

Warm syrup, prick cake and pour over.

Yummy!